They tried to be loyal. They wanted to give it a chance. But among the Tory
believers, the doubts over their new government couldn't help seeping
through.

"I am retired on my not-very-large share portfolio, and if I realise any gains from that I shall get clobbered by the capital gains tax rise. I think that's rather sad," says Councillor Jenny Samper. "I feel the little bodies who have worked their socks off and who are not dependent on the state because they save get hit."

In east Kent on Friday, the sky was as deep a blue as the politics. The Sunday Telegraph was in Canterbury and Whitstable, which has had a Conservative or Unionist MP continuously since party labels were first used here in 1862. Now, overnight, there is an entirely new label: the Lib-Cons, confusing for a local party whose greatest enemy is the Liberal Democrats.

But we chose this constituency for another reason, too. As well as Conservatism, it represents something else, even more embedded in the English psyche and about to undergo just as potentially destabilising a change: the property market.

The university city of Canterbury is one of England's biggest magnets for buy-to-let landlords. The seaside town of Whitstable is full of second-home owners. Across the constituency lie householders who'd hoped to escape inheritance tax under promised Tory changes. The new coalition government is about to disappoint all three groups of people.

In the emergency budget next month, capital gains tax will rise, from 18 to perhaps 40 or 50 per cent, massively reducing any profits you make from selling shares, a buy-to-let property or a second home. The inheritance tax threshold will stay at its present £325,000, with 40 per cent payable on everything over that. Even the official representatives of the local Conservative Party, its councillors, are upset.

"I remember in one of the election debates, David Cameron was very strong that people should be allowed to enjoy the fruits of their work," says another Tory councillor, Rosemary Doyle. "I am disappointed with inheritance tax. I was hoping it would be raised."

Did you ever imagine that your party would end up potentially almost trebling capital gains tax, I asked Mike Sharp, another councillor? "No," he said. "We've actually got a second home, a flat down in Whitstable. That's my pension. If you are looking for a quick gain, you should be charged – but if you've held something for five years and it's gone up by £50,000, you shouldn't have to pay."

That was broadly the position until recently, under a provision known as "taper relief." The longer you held an asset before selling it, the less tax you had to pay on your profit. In 2008, taper relief was removed – but the overall rate was cut to make up. Now capital gains tax payers face a double whammy.

"We will only be able to repay our debts by creating wealth. We cannot do that by hobbling businesses and entrepreneurs with a higher tax burden and punishing people who have done the right thing in saving and investing," says Michael Forsyth, the former Tory cabinet minister who chaired the party's tax reform commission, its proposals now mostly torn up.

The political danger for the new government is if this comes to be seen as a tax on aspiration. David Cameron said last week that a second home was "not necessarily a splendid investment for the whole economy" – a comment which led to shaking heads and pursed lips among the aspirational Tories of Canterbury. "It's all right for him," said one councillor. "He's always had two homes, but it's something a lot of our voters dream about."

More dangerous still is if a fire sale of buy-to-lets depresses the broader property market, on which so many people's feelings of prosperity depend. Even in the few days since the issue came on to the radar, the Canterbury estate agents say that second-home owners and buy-to-let landlords have been coming in to sell their properties before the tax rise hits.

"I've had two today," said Neil Boswell, director of Caxtons. "The buy-to-let market in Canterbury is enormous." Gary Curtis, sales manager at Amos and Dawton, said: "Fifteen minutes before you came in, there was a buy-to-let landlord sitting in front of me and thinking about selling." Bill Dane, at Your Move, said: "I'm seeing a property this afternoon for that reason, and our main valuer is out on another job for the same purpose. It hasn't been massive, yet, but it could have a big effect on the market."

Richard Donnell, research director of the analysts Hometrack, says: "A reasonable proportion of the small landlords will look to sell. That will have an impact on local markets." And he has another warning: that the Government may end up paying more if the number of buy-to-let properties falls. "If there is a shortage of rental homes, that could lead to a big increase in council or housing association waiting lists," he said. In the final analysis, though, he does not believe the impact will be seismic. "A lot of buy-to-let landlords are sitting on big paper losses," Donnell says. "If you are underwater on capital values, you may sit it out."

Back in Canterbury and Whitstable, the councillors are still distinctly gloomy. "We've all got to realise that we're in desperate times and we've got to suffer," says Cyril Windsor. Jenny Samper adds: "I live in an old farmhouse and it is small, but as I've got a bit of land I will get clobbered for inheritance tax. What it means is that if you hand on your family home, the people you give it to are caught and have to sell their inheritance to pay the tax."

The local Conservative MP, Julian Brazier, though passed over in favour of a Liberal Democrat for a government job, is more supportive of the coalition than most of his activists. "I don't want to see the capital gains tax increase happen," he says. "My own parents have a second home. But we have to find ways of balancing the books. Most of my constituents are not wealthy enough to be caught by these tax changes – the thing they're really worried about is immigration."

That, perhaps even more than property, is a subject Kentish voters feel in their visceras. Canterbury and Whitstable, like a lot of places along the Thames estuary, are full of working-class whites who have moved out of London. And when they fume about immigrants, they don't just mean ethnic minorities. "Second home owners in Whitstable are deeply unpopular with local people," says Brazier. "They call them the DFLs – down-from-Londons."

So some effects of the tax rises could actually be popular with the electorate. And immigration generally is not an area where the Tories in the coalition have given much ground. But if even your councillors, in the bluest of heartlands, are feeling bruised, that cannot be an entirely encouraging sign for the future.